Taxing Childcare: Effects on Childcare Choices, Family Labor Supply, and Children

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research at DIW BerlinThis series presents research findings based either directly on data from the German SocioEconomic Panel study (SOEP) or using SOEP data as part of an internationally comparable data set (e.g. CNEF, ECHP, LIS, LWS, CHER/PACO). SOEP is a truly multidisciplinary household panel study covering a wide range of social and behavioral sciences: economics, sociology, psychology, survey methodology, econometrics and applied statistics, educational science, political science, public health, behavioral genetics, demography, geography, and sport science.The decision to publish a submission in SOEPpapers is made by a board of editors chosen by the DIW Berlin to represent the wide range of disciplines covered by SOEP. There is no external referee process and papers are either accepted or rejected without revision. Papers appear in this series as works in progress and may also appear elsewhere. They often represent preliminary studies and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be requested from the author directly.Any opinions expressed in this series are those of the author(s) and not those of DIW Berlin.Research disseminated by DIW Berlin may include views on public policy issues, but the institute itself takes no institutional policy positions. Abstract Previous studies report a range of estimates for the response of female labor supply and childcare attendance to childcare prices. We shed new light on these questions using a policy reform that raises the price of public daycare. After the reform, children are 8 percentage points less likely to attend public daycare which implies a compensated price elasticity of -0.6. There is little labor supply response in the full sample, though declines for vulnerable subgroups. Spillover effects on older siblings and fertility decisions show that the policy affects the whole household, not just targeted family members.Acknowledgments: We thank Iwan

Parental Leave, (In)formal Childcare, and Long-Term Child Outcomes

“…8 See, for instance, Carneiro et al (2015); Elango et al (2016); Gathmann and Sass (2018); Havnes and Mogstad (2011). above and provides mixed results.…”

Parental labour supply responses to the abolition of day care fees

“…Givord & Marbot (2015) estimate that maternal labour force participation increased by around 1 percentage point in the short-term. Gathmann & Sass (2018) show that a relative increase in day care costsresulting from a subsidy for home-based care in one federal statereduces day care attendance by 8 percentage points, with no effects on maternal labour supply. Busse & Gathmann (2018) provide first evidence on effects of day care fee abolitions for Germany.…”

Literacy skills and family configurations

“…Failure to complete secondary school makes it almost impossible to progress to higher education and even, purely for financial and practical reasons, to resume studying, especially at upper secondary level. Various studies have shown what a negative net effect teenage motherhood has on women's participation in education (Luong, 2008[9]; Fletcher and Wolfe, 2009 [10]). 12 Whether pregnancy or the birth of a child is the cause for the interruption of studies or, conversely, whether there are pre-existing socio-economic conditions that increase the probability both of early parenthood and of dropping out of school is an important research question, but one that cannot be answered with PIAAC data.…”